288 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



suggestion of the wonder and delight which may be 

 found in nature. 



We say, and I am here speaking of my own peculiar 

 people, the naturalists, that birds too, like ourselves, 

 may be pulled two ways, and that two conflicting im- 

 pulses may be the cause of one of the most pathetic 

 of Nature's innumerable little annual tragedies. This 

 is when a pair of swallows are rearing a late brood, and 

 before the time comes for the young to fly are them- 

 selves overtaken and borne away to the south by the 

 irresistible migratory instinct. 



It happened that on the very day of my arrival at 

 Wells, October 17, I noticed a pair of martins still 

 feeding their young in a nest under the eaves above a 

 sweetstuff shop, within two or three doors of the 

 Wells post-office. Now I shall see for myself, I said, 

 resolving to keep an eye on them. There were no 

 other martins or swallows of any kind in Wells at that 

 date : a fortnight earlier I had witnessed the end of 

 the swallow migration, as I thought, on the South 

 Devon sea-coast. I saw them morning after morning 

 in numbers, travelling along the coast towards the 

 Isle of Wight, which is one of their great crossing- 

 places, until they had all gone. 



I kept an eye on the martins, visiting them very early 

 every morning and two or three times later during each 

 day. The young, it could be seen when they thrust 

 their heads and almost half their bodies out to receive 

 the food their parents brought, were fully grown and 

 very clamorous. 



